


What Makes Up Happy

by LeighKelly



Series: NYU!verse [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4804832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeighKelly/pseuds/LeighKelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In their third year of college, Brittany and Santana take a break from their schoolwork, and meet up with a friend at a bar in the Village.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Makes Up Happy

It’s late, Santana notices, when her music theory professor finally ends the class. More often than not, it’s like that, but she can’t complain, she thoroughly enjoys the discussion, and really, with the way Brittany’s had to lock herself in the math lab for the past two weeks, Santana is sure she isn’t missing anything at home. Well, she isn’t missing anything but her extremely busy wife. It’s midway through the fall semester of their third year of college, and somehow it seems like whenever one of them isn’t busy, the other is, and most of the time they’ve been able to spend together comes after midnight, when one (usually Santana, she knows she’s the one who typically ends up staying up far later, trying to get one last thing done) crawls into bed and finds their place pressed up against the other.

  
A little pouty as she leaves class, since even in their third year of marriage, Brittany’s company is still her favorite, Brittany is still her favorite person, Santana considers dinner, and then realizes it’s been awhile since she’s gone to the Courant building with a meal for her wife. Brightening a little, Santana digs her phone out from deep within her bag and calls Dojo, ordering stir fry and ramen, and decides that she wants to go to Insomnia for snickerdoodles-Brittany’s favorite- as well. Once all the food is prepared and ready to go, Santana makes her way to Brittany’s building (she’s certain, really, that I’ll be named after her someday), and a familiar security guard sits at the desk when she enters.

  
“Mrs. Pierce-Lopez.” He smiles, touching his fingertips to his forehead and mock salute. Santana warms inside at the recognition, warms inside that Brittany, her Brittany, is important enough that the staff knows not only her, but her wife. “Looks like somebody’s lucky tonight.”

  
“I-what?” She stammers, then realizes that she’s carrying all of this food, and he doesn’t mean _lucky_ , lucky. Her face flames, and she sucks her lips into her mouth, trying not to look like a complete weirdo. “Yeah, Brittany’s been really busy with this hypothesis she’s trying to prove, so she can present it to the International Mathematics Council before Christmas. I figured I’d bring her dinner.”

  
“Well I’m sure she’ll be grateful for that. I’ve been here since eleven, and I haven’t seen her come down once. I won’t keep you.” He waves her past. “Enjoy.”

  
“Thanks Brennan. Hopefully I’ll be able to coax her out of here, and we’ll see you in a little while.”

  
“Good luck with that.”

  
With a final smile, Santana slips through the turnstile and heads to the elevator, pressing the appropriate floor and tapping the toe of her ballet flat against the tile as she goes up, up, up. She’s quiet as she makes her way down the hall, really wanting to surprise Brittany. When she approaches the room Brittany always works in, Santana leans against the doorframe, watching Brittany on he blackboard, scrawling with different chalk colors. Working on paper is hard for her, the lack of space a hindrance to her complex thought processes (and the reason she came home one day to find that Santana had painted an entire wall in their apartment with chalkboard paint, wanting her wife’s genius mind to have all the space it needed to create magic) so Brittany’s notes are larger than life, and Santana just stands in awe for several minutes. When she finally decides to go in, she does so on tiptoes, and Brittany is so immersed in the cloud of numbers before her that she doesn’t hear Santana put the bags down on one of the tables and shed her jacket.

  
“Guess who?” Santana comes up behind Brittany and stands on her toes to rest her chin on Brittany’s should and cover her eyes, breathing into her ear. Immediately, Brittany relaxes into her touch, her whole body smiling.

  
“Santana!” She turns around immediately, forgoing the guessing game and gathering her wife in her arms, kissing her face, giggling a little. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  
“I wanted to surprise you.” She shrugs. “I come bearing ramen and cookies.”

  
“Oh my God. I don’t know what I’m more excited about, you or the food.” Brittany teases, kissing Santana fully on the lips and tugging the strings of a particular stolen sweatshirt. “Thank you. I was actually going to head home early tonight, I missed you. Sorry I’ve been so busy.”

  
“You don’t have to apologize. I know your big genius math brain is back to solving all the world’s problems.” Santana smiles, leading Brittany to sit, and taking out the containers of food. “But I’m glad you’re coming home.”

  
They eat mostly in silence, legs tangled under the table, sharing bites of the soup and rice and occasional adoring grins to each other. That’s the thing about them, they never need many words, it’s just moments, moments like this that make their marriage so successful. They don’t need to fill in the gaps between breaths, they can just exist, together, in the world they’re building. Santana feels at home in the math building, because it’s one of Brittany’s places, and she glances again at the numbers, still so wholly impressed by everything that pours out of her wife’s mind. When they’re finished, Brittany insists on cleaning up, kissing Santana’s forehead and telling her to sit for another minute, because she had classes all day too. It’s after dark when they leave the building hand in hand, waving goodbye to Brennan, and they walk around for awhile, something they’ve taken to doing together when they have the time, still learning their neighborhood, even after two and a half years there.

    
“God, who keeps texting me?” Santana groans, and after the third time her phone chimes, she digs in her backpack to find it, rolling her eyes. “Go away, Connor.”

  
“What does he want?” Brittany giggles a little at Santana’s reaction.

  
“He wants to know if we want to meet him in the West Village. He needs to get laid so bad, that way he doesn’t bother us all the time.”

  
“Except that we actually like him.”

  
“Details.”

  
“I’m okay with going, if you want to.” Brittany tells Santana, knowing that they’re both just as happy to go home and lay on the couch with Netflix, but a night out is probably much needed, and will be fun.

  
“Yeah? Don’t you have a ton of work to do though?”

  
“You know I’m not going to end up doing anything else tonight anyway. I just want to spend time with you, I don’t care if Connor’s there trying to pick up guys, though I wish you’d let me set him up with Kurt.”

  
“Totally not setting him up with a twenty-four year old divorcee who still hangs out with his ex. Not getting Connor involved with that drama. We’ll never hear the end of it, and I’m not taking even more interruptions to my Britt time.”

  
“I love you.” Brittany laughs, kissing the corner of Santana’s mouth, hearing the words she’s not saying, that she cares really hard, and she doesn’t want their friend to get hurt- you know, on top of not wanting to have to comfort at two-hundred pound crying man, when they could be doing…other things. “So what do you wanna do?”

  
“We’ll go, but Britt, you gotta get my drinks for me, because I have flats on.”

  
“I know, short stuff.” She teases, though she smiles inwardly that Santana doesn’t feel like need to go home and get ready, as she once would have, but instead is totally fine going out for a drink in jeans and a sweatshirt, hair piled in a messy bun (though still entirely gorgeous, Brittany notes). “I know you’re still traumatized from the time you spilled a beer on the lady sitting at the bar and then hid behind me like she was going to kill you.”

  
“I mean…she was pretty pissed.”

  
“As would anyone who got an entire pint spilled on them, goof. But she was also fifty, and mostly just wanted some napkins.”

  
“Whatever, that bar is totally not designed for people under five-foot-eight.”

  
“Convenient you’re married to someone exactly that tall, isn’t it?” Brittany shakes her head when Santana scrunches up her face in that sweet way she does. “Text him back, tell him we’re on our way, and I’ll be your personal waitress all night.”

  
Brittany teases Santana most of the walk over, and she’s the only person who can do that without Santana getting prickly and defensive. Instead, Santana just laughs along with her, telling her not everyone could get giant genes, that her father-in-law understands that better than anyone, and that she prefers having her giant wife wrap her up and protect her from absolutely non-threatening middle aged lesbians who just want to have a drink after work. It’s not that crowded when they get there, and of course, Connor is late, as usual. While Brittany goes to the bar, Santana finds them a table in the back and up into the chair, grinning when Brittany shimmies back in time to the Lady Gaga music that blares over the speakers, two drinks in hand.

  
“Thank you, baby.” Santana kisses Brittany in gratitude, and snuggles into her when she moves her seat closer. It’s one of her favorite things about New York, how she’s totally permitted to be herself, to sidle up to Brittany, to kiss her goodbye, to call her baby in public, without anyone so much as blinking an eye (even when they aren’t in a gay bar). “Can I taste?”

  
“You’re still trying to like vodka tonic?” Brittany slides her drink over to Santana, and watches as she takes a sip and wrinkles her nose, before sliding it back and taking a hearty gulp of her Long Island iced tea. 

  
“I just don’t understand why everyone likes it but me.”

  
“Guys!” Connor comes rushing over and quickly falls into the chair across from them. “Oh my God, I’m so excited you came! I’ve gotta tell you all about the guy in my Abnormal Psych class. I finally talked to him!”

  
They sit and listen as Connor rambles on and on about his crush, Santana playing with Brittany’s fingers in her lap, Brittany running her hand up and down Santana’s side. Connor’s used to it by now, he’s known them since he met Santana in a human sexuality class the second year they were at school, and he knows that they like to touch at any given moment. They communicate that way, he’s sure, and from the first moment he found out that Santana was married and she lit up talking about her wife, that he’s never been around a couple that were so in tune with each other, and so in love. He enjoys hanging out with them, and it doesn’t hurt that Brittany is basically the best wing woman ever- Santana, not so much, and it’s probably lucky she met the love of her life so young, because the girl couldn’t flirt her way out of a paper bag.

  
An hour later, Santana’s pretty drunk- much more so than Brittany, who’s just a little buzzed, because really, she doesn’t like feeling like she wants to take her clothes off, unless she’s home alone with her wife- and Connor the social butterfly has managed to gather a group of people to their table. Santana has ended up on Brittany’s lap (“it’s okay! You take my chair! I’ll just sit right here!” She’d exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Brittany’s neck and fitting herself into her body) with the remainder of her fourth drink pushed away, and she’s in that state that Brittany can’t help but find adorable, eyes heavily lidded, stealing occasional kisses, and whispering sweet words of affection into her ear.

  
“So you guys are married? Like married, married?” One guy in the group, a particularly obnoxious one, Brittany thinks, slurs.

  
“Yes, married, married!” Santana grabs Brittany’s left hand with her own and holds up the rings. “Like, we had a wedding and my name is Pierce-Lopez. But not Pierce Lopez, like if Brittany’s dad married my mom.” She tells him, and Brittany laughs at her joke, though clearly no one who doesn’t know her dad understands it. “What other kind of married would there be?”

  
“I don’t know, you’re like twenty.”

  
“Twenty-four.” Brittany tightens her arm around Santana’s waist. They’ve been hearing this since exactly thirty seconds after she accepted Santana’s proposal, like age is the end all be all factor in a happy marriage, and it never fails to irritate them hearing it, especially from people they’ve never met. “And we’ve been in love with each other for what feels like as long as I can remember.”

  
“Okay, cool, or whatever, but your twenties are all about hooking up and meeting new people. How are you supposed to do that if your shacked up with each other?” He snarks a little, and Santana’s head snaps up from its cradle in Brittany’s neck.

  
“Excuse me, who are you, toothpick leg, tiny eyes to tell us what we’re supposed to be doing with our twenties.” Santana snaps, and Brittany has to cover her mouth so as not to laugh at the not as creative as usual insults her drunk wife spits out. “Yes, by all means, let me trade being happy in love, having my wife to come home to and share a bed with every night for bar trolling and hook ups. I don’t know about you, since you look like you were probably a virgin until yesterday, but I did my share of hooking up in high school, and it was gross, and I just wanted Brittany.”

  
“Okay, but-”

  
“See this?” Brittany held up her hand again. “This means way more to me than anything else, because it’s s promise that I’ll love no one but my wife. You don’t know us, and you don’t know how we work. I’m glad you’re happy doing your thing, and I’m sure it’s great for you, but this is what we want, and what makes us happy. Please pretend you know better because someone gave you some made up order in which you’re supposed to do things.”

  
“Yeah, and she’s a genius, and actual real genius, so you have to listen to her.” Santana tells him, trying not to sniffle, since she’s reached that emotional point in the night, and she doesn’t want to cry in front of strangers (Connor, unfortunately, had witnessed it for the first time the same night she’d spilled the drink, but he courteously never mentions it). 

  
“I think we should go home, honey. I’ve got an early class tomorrow.” Brittany ghosts her lips over the side of Santana’s face, and before Santana can correct her that they don’t have classes on Fridays, she realizes that Brittany is looking for an excuse to leave and nods.

  
They say their goodbyes, sort of half heartedly, and Connor is quick to get up with them, pretty much over that group of people anyway. Santana grabs Brittany’s hand as they make it out to the street, and Connor looks around, trying to find a cab. He hugs them goodbye when he finally does, and he apologizes, before Santana chides him for his shitty taste in human beings, and she and Brittany make their long walk home together in peaceful silence, sticking close to each other to keep warm as the temperature of the night quickly drops. They’re both grateful to be in from the cold when they get home, and since the heat hasn’t come on in the building yet, Brittany is quick to toss Santana warm pajamas, before getting into her own and quickly finishing their nightly routine so they can curl up in bed together. Santana is still a little drunk when she finds her spot on Brittany’s chest, draping her arm over her stomach and titling her head up to kiss the underside of Brittany’s chin.

  
“That guys was such an idiot.” She murmurs. “I love being married to you, Britt. I always love being married to you. I don’t care if we were twenty-one or a hundred and twenty-one when we did.”

  
“I always love being married to you too, Santana.” She soothes, not wanting her to get upset again, and also because it’s true. She would have married that woman at seventeen, if they could have. “Other than him, did you have fun tonight though?”

  
“Mhmm. Although next time we go out, Connor’s not picking, because I want to dance with you, and that place sucks for that.”

  
“Well, we don’t have classes tomorrow, I think maybe you and I could put on some music and dance in our socks before we have to spend the rest of our life on homework. That’s my favorite way to dance with you anyway.”

  
“That sounds perfect, Britt. And you’re right, that’s my favorite way to dance with you too.” Santana smiled, and they were quiet for a long time, Brittany running her fingers through Santana’s hair, and Santana mentally counting the freckles on Brittany’s arm as she trailed her fingers over it. “Night wifey, I love you so much.”

  
“Sweet dreams, wifey, I love you too.”


End file.
